Tag Archives: rescue

Today’s fortune says:

Look closely at your surroundings.

POWERS OF OBSERVATION

It started with a scream.

David looked left. Down the street, two struggling men crashed into a woman, shoving her toward the curb. Reflex made her hands open to stop her fall. She lost her grip on the baby stroller. Its front wheels dropped off the curb. A wave of taxis flooded the street, pouring down in a fast yellow tide straight at the stroller.

Half a block. Seconds.

David seized a bright orange planter from beside the doorway of a restaurant. Stretching his legs, pushing his stride, he flung the planter in a short arc. It hit the street just ahead of the stroller. Dirt clods, broken ceramic, and chrysanthemums burst outward like pretty shrapnel. The stroller’s wheels hung up on the debris. The taxis at the front of the wave swerved away from the mess, blocking each other, spinning sideways as crash after crash piled up behind them.

David’s fingers closed around the frame of the stroller, metal bars crossing beneath the bassinet. Hoisting it up into his arms like a puppy snatched from the roadway, he leaped up onto the sidewalk and spun around, slamming his back against the granite wall of a bank. He slid down and hit the pavement, still clutching the entire stroller against his chest.

The woman yanked back the hood of the stroller, terror in her eyes and tears streaming down her cheeks.

The baby let out a wail, both little pink hands reaching up.

David smiled. He didn’t know what that planter had cost, but it was a small price to pay.

Ever had one of those days when no matter how hard you try, life just keeps getting between you and what you’re trying to accomplish?

Today fought me from the minute I dragged myself out of bed. Phone calls, interruptions, distractions, failures to communicate. This resulted in me being late picking up John at school, something I try my very best to avoid.

When I was a little kid, my mother had occasion to leave me with babysitters or at day care centers. Either Mom wasn’t good at time management, or life got in her way too, because she was often quite late picking me up. When you’re six, this causes the kind of anxiety that scorches your little tiny soul for life. I don’t EVER want John to feel that.

Once I picked up John, he alerted me to the sudden need for two dozen cupcakes. P.E. class will be having a BBQ to celebrate the end of school. The cupcakes are John’s contribution to the feast. OK. Since I had to drive to the store with the best bakery, I did a few other errands in that part of town. One resulted in upsetting news. The other took three times longer than I’d anticipated.

Tomorrow is the Spousal Unit’s birthday. I also have a group luncheon to attend. I have to duck out of that early because we’re interviewing new R.N.s for Michael. Summer school is bearing down on us and we really need more help.

So I’m a little stressed out, right?

I get home with John to discover my sister has rescued a baby robin from the clutches of our male cat, Hunter. (That’s his name, job description, species niche, and favorite occupation. Not bad for a single word. ) We suspect the baby fell out of its nest, because it’s too young to fly. My sister set it on a branch in the camellia bushes out of the cats’ reach and we shut all three feline predators inside the house.

I fed the baby robin some water with a small syringe. We watched and waited, hoping its mother would appear. Even if she did, how would she return her baby to the nest? This was not a happy situation, especially with John looking on hoping everything would be OK.

Night was closing in. I took the baby robin to the local native animal rescue. Finding the place involved a wild ride that is exactly what kept me from getting my own car for so many years. God and the police must have both been feeling kindly toward me. I finally found the rescue center, which was part of a private residence.

Now came the hard part. I had to leave the baby robin there and walk away. I sat in my car and cried for a while. I can call in a day or two and see how things are going. I dread doing so, for all the obvious reasons.

What’s important here is no matter how horrible today was, once that baby bird turned up, everything fell into a very simple perspective.

Save the baby bird.

A while back I wrote a blog post about lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness. All the stress I’m mired in right now fell away before that one clear priority.

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Finding My Fiction

Who I Am

I'm a professional writer living in Northern California with my husband and two sons. Fantasy in various forms is my reading and writing pleasure. I'm a history buff, a Japanophile, and I love to learn about language(s). I enjoy making jewelry, using natural materials such as wood, bone, semiprecious stones, and seashells. I collect bookmarks and wind chimes.